Touhou Reiiden: Highly Responsive to Prayers
is a 1986 action shooting game developed and published by Amusement Software. The game was released in November 1986. After Amusement Software went out of business in 1988, the rights to the game were transferred to Drillimation Studios. Blurb A brutal war is ongoing in feudal Japan, and two races, humans and the ghostly youkai are fighting to the death. Your side, the human race, is struggling to keep their stake high and sharp. You take on the role of Reimu Hakurei, a young shrine maiden, to stop the war once and for all. Your place in history is around 300 years in the past, and during the war, Reimu's shrine was destroyed by a group of youkai, and you must descend into the Netherworld or Demonworld and to either defeat Konngara, the astral knight of the Netherworld, or Sariel, the death angel of the Demonworld. Your journey won't be easy, as fierce youkai enemies and undestroyable turrets lie ahead. Your only weapons of choice are a ying-yang orb to get around the obstacles, the everlasting gohei to attack, and your ofuda to destroy enemy projectiles. Gameplay The game introduces the Shrine Maiden Reimu Hakurei, who frantically attempts to persuade a bouncing Yin-Yang Orb to hit various on-screen targets, "cards" and "bosses" alike. Reimu can knock and maneuver the Yin-Yang orb around by whacking it with her gohei, slide-tackling it, and firing shots at it. Enemies will be trying to hinder your progress by firing at you, but you can cancel out their shots with your own, or even deflect them by swinging your gohei. Only the Yin-Yang orb can damage the enemies, however, so simply firing your shots at enemies will have no effect. As a last resort, Reimu can use a "bomb", once per life, to hit all cards on the screen, or if able, Reimu can collect a power star to temporarily become invincible for a small period of time. There is no guarantee that any given card will be hit, and will often fail to damage a boss. The game consists of several stages of increasing difficulty, with a boss fight occurring every five stages. To complete a stage, the player should clear all cards or defeat the boss. Reimu will lose a life whenever the health bar is depleted. She will take damage when she is hit by an enemy projectile or the yin-yang orb. There are two selectable paths in the game: the Hell path and the Makai path. Each route features unique stages, bosses, and endings. Plot The game's cutscenes are written in Reimu's point of view, as she describes the events that happen as the game progresses. The game begins with the blue text "A long time ago in an eastern land far far away", similar to the Star Wars intro that tells the backstory in a slideshow style instead of a crawl. In the intro, she tells the story of Gensoukyou and how her shrine was creatively "nuked" during a war between the humanoids and youkai. The game also includes the following text in the intro: Once upon a time, there was a place called Gensoukyou. Two races ruled Gensoukyou: humanoids and youkai. One day, a war broke out between the two races. The humanoids were unsuccessful, as the youkai took over Gensoukyou. During the war, a shrine known as the Hakurei Shrine was destroyed. In there, a girl named Reimu Hakurei must stop the war once and for all. She must ascend into the Netherrealm and punish the culprit. Sprites spr_reimuidle_0.png|Reimu's back sprite. spr_yingyang_0.png|The ying-yang orb. spr_points_0.png|The extra points item. spr_portal_0.png|The portal. spr_bombup_0.png|The bomb-up powerup. Notice the bob-omb inside. spr_powerstar_0.png|The power star. Music Like all of Drillimation's games, games generally use tracker music for soundtracks. The following list below is the covers that Driller has done for the game. Ones that do not have a link mean they are a work-in-progress. To play them, enable Online Player at the upper left-hand corner of the screen. *A Sacred Lot *Shrine of the Wind *Eternal Shrine Maiden *The Positive and Negative *Highly Responsive to Prayers *Strange Oriental Discourse *Angel's Legend *Oriental Magician *Blade of Banishment *Magic Mirror *The Legend of Kage References to later games *''Lucky Star'': One of the melodies from Angel's Legend is reused in the song Heart of Fire. *''Touhou 3: The Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dreams'': Melodies from Blade of Banishment are reused in The Empty Girl. *''Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2'': The Yin-Yang orb appears as a character item exclusive to Yutaka Zhong and Minami Iwasaki. The same mechanic is used for flipping over other karts.